


Exiles (Eden Is a Feeling, Not a Place)

by zeldadestry



Category: Eastern Promises (2007)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-14
Updated: 2008-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:45:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many nights when it is impossible to fall asleep, nights when he knows no rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exiles (Eden Is a Feeling, Not a Place)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for fairy_tale_echo in the New Year's Resolutions 2008 Challenge

There are many nights when it is impossible to fall asleep, nights when he knows no rest.

Let me see the stars, Kirill says, and touches his fingers to Nikolai’s chest. Now we are true brothers. I am so happy.

Drunk, Kirill laughs, shouts, stumbles into Nikolai again and again, collapses against him, breathes hot at his throat. He begs affection, grasps for it fierce as an orphan, and Nikolai gives him much, but can never give all that he asks.

Nikolai is his god, a god he pretends to order around. In Nikolai he has the best of man, the best of woman: a man’s strong body to protect him, a man’s hard body to desire, but a mother’s tenderness, a mother’s capacity to forgive.

Nikolai is no cruel god, but he does demand tribute. He gives and gives, because there is so much to get, to be gained, in return.

Kirill buys dolls for Maria, more than she can ever play with, so many dolls that she no longer bothers to name them. He buys her little shoes with tiny heels in brightly colored patent leather, and rings and bracelets and jeweled barrettes for her hair. “She will like,” he says, showing the gifts to Nikolai, who smiles, agrees. “She will like,” he says softly, murmurs to himself, completely satisfied by his ability to properly execute this one meaningless task. “She misses her grandpa.” And before he can fall into melancholy, before he can lock himself up with a bottle, Nikolai leans in and rests his hand against the small of Kirill’s back, brings the unabashed grin back to his face.

Kirill would have patterned himself on any father. Were his father a farmer, he would take his place behind the plow.

He has no self, can not be himself, because he can not accept himself.

A man who knows who he is fucks who he wants to fuck, and does what he wants to do. It is all connected.

The man who can not admit his desire is no man at all.

He doesn’t understand who he is, what he wants. He hates the word “queer” because it means to him frailty, uselessness, a sin against his father, never understanding that it is Semyon, as the patriarch of calculated crime and the cultivator of systemic violence, who is the abomination.

Justice. You will reap what you sow. And Nikolai will bring down those who know what they do, know it is sin, and do not let that stop them.

  
He doubts, at times, his own true purpose. Too many motivations jumble together inside him, at odds with each other, so that he is at odds with himself. When he passes a mirror he sometimes takes off his sunglasses and tries to see himself, clearly. Ends up rubbing at his eyes, which water in the light. His vision blurs.

Anna saw him. Down at the water, she begged to know who he was, but she knew all that mattered already. She knew. She trusted him.

Anna Ivanovna, in the spring. Flowers bloom in a garden and the child will grow. And he will have no part in it, though he helped to give her life, a symbolic father only.

  
Show me, Kirill says, and gently touches Nikolai’s side, where one of his wounds is. And Nikolai shakes his head, and Kirill curves his hands around Nikolai’s face. You must show me. I want to see. Nikolai reluctantly unbuttons his shirt, holds it open, puts himself on display for Kirill, who hisses and yells and beats his fist against the wall.

If my papa would ever try to hurt you again, Kirill says, I will kill him. Brow against brow, cheek against cheek, hands clasping at each other.

Kirill sits beside him, and when he is drunk his touch lingers. And Nikolai knows that if he were to open his eyes, if he were to turn just a fraction towards him, it would all unravel, it would all come crashing down.

Kirill will do anything for him, Kirill loves him. This is the knowledge that fills him with regret: he uses the best part of Kirill, the best part of any man, to get what he wants. It is this regret that makes each touch and each shared glance with Kirill seem true. Kirill recognizes Nikolai’s sorrow, and it makes him trust, makes him believe. For one is always sad in love, afraid the beloved will leave, be hurt, or worst of all, turn traitor. There is no moment with Kirill when Nikolai is not betraying him.

When he remembers his father, remembers that he betrayed his father, and how, by setting up Nikolai, his father had betrayed him first, he cries. He begs Nikolai to never leave him, then demands that Nikolai always stay with him, threatens. Live with me or die alone.

What will they do with Kirill, when the day of reckoning arrives? Who, besides Nikolai, could understand, believe, that it is possible to quell Kirill’s desperate outbursts of violence and rage, so long as he trusts the hands that hold him back and seek to stop him? Alone, he is as dangerous to others as he is to himself.

Kirill can not make his own choices. He can not be free to stand. And Nikolai gives in to him, half a lie and a trick, half in truth. Brow to brow, cheek to cheek. For just a moment, lips to lips. Kirill kisses him again, as he kissed Anna.

He will remember nothing in the morning. When he finally passes out, Nikolai leaves, returns to his barren rooms in this city he will never call home. He has no home. He is no one.

  
He knows he may not survive this. He will always defend himself, yes, regardless of the blood shed. He will, he has.

He passes her once, on the street, without the child, and all he can do is stare straight ahead, keep walking, and she stands there, mouth open, but does not speak or reach to him.

He dreams of her that night; she becomes the icon his mother prayed to when he was a boy. She is the Virgin, in her blue robes, surrounded by golden halos, and she kisses him again and again.

Wakes with his cock hard, drool on the pillow, wipes his mouth with one hand, cups his balls with the other.

Anna, Anna, Anna, if he were the man he is pretending to be, he could have her, taint her, without regrets.

Anna, bold and brave and unafraid. Protecting Christina, avenging Tatiana.

At least one life already saved. Two: the baby and the girl.

The girl, Kirilenko, naked, lying on her side, hope all but gone, yet singing.

He fucked her like giving a show, Kirill’s whore, he is Kirill’s whore, just as Kirill is his, but Kirill doesn’t realize.

If he dies, then he dies. He will save as many as he can before then.

  
Let me see the stars, Kirill says, let me touch them.

Anna Ivanovna, in the spring. Flowers bloom in a garden and the child will grow. And he will have no part in it.

  
Anna Ivanovna, in the spring.  



End file.
